


thou hast known worse than this

by iphigenias



Series: shadowhunters post-ep fics [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Episode: s02e12, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 08:42:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11204448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iphigenias/pseuds/iphigenias
Summary: Magnus goes to bed, ignores a text, and learns how to live again.





	thou hast known worse than this

**Author's Note:**

> just another post episode fic that i had to get out of my system. i really hope they deal with magnus' trauma on the show. 
> 
> title is from homer's iliad: _be still my heart; thou hast known worse than this._

“Tell me what I can do to fix this.”

Magnus can’t look at him. He knows he should be able to. Knows that Alec only did what he thought was right, and Magnus shouldn’t blame him. He’s well aware how deceptive Valentine can be. If their roles were reversed, Magnus thinks maybe, maybe he wouldn’t have believed Alec either.

But knowing this and accepting it are two very different things. And Magnus still can’t meet Alec’s eyes.

“I think I just need to be alone right now,” he says, standing and turning towards the bedroom.

“Okay,” Alec replies, and his voice is so gentle it would break Magnus’ heart if it wasn’t already torn to pieces. “I’ll just clean the rest of this up, then I’ll go.”

Magnus nods tiredly and walks to his room, shutting the door behind him. He should take off his makeup, should strip out of his clothes at least, but there’s a tiredness in his limbs and an ache behind his eyes and he drops the glamour from them because even that small piece of magic is too much to sustain right now.

Magnus climbs into bed, fully clothed, sighing as his head hits the pillow. He stays awake to listen to Alec clear the last of the broken glass up, hears his footsteps hesitate past the bedroom before moving out the door and closing is gently behind him. Only then, when he is alone, does Magnus shut his eyes. He prays that the dreams don’t come, but God has never listened to him, and He doesn’t start now.

 

*

 

Magnus wakes to the buzzing of his phone. He’d dumped it on the side table last night and now it vibrates on the hard surface, the noise drilling into Magnus’ skull and only making the headache he’s had since yesterday worse. He checks the contact name. _A. Lightwood_. Magnus would smile if the name didn’t make him want to curl up in grief. He’d considered changing it every now and again, adding a few heart emojis, maybe, but that was the way he’d put it in when he’d first acquired Alec’s number, and Magnus is nothing if not sentimental.

Well, he was. He’s not so sure now.

He watches the call end and the screen time out. About half a minute later, maybe, it buzzes again, a notification for a new voicemail. Magnus feels cocooned and he isn’t sure he wants to hear what Alec has to say but he’s reaching out anyway, almost on instinct, unlocking the phone and playing the message before he can second-guess himself.

“ _Hey_ ,” Alec’s voice filters through the apartment. Magnus clenches the covers tightly between his fists. “ _It’s me. I know you want to be left alone, I was just calling to check in. See if you… if you’re okay._ ” He sighs over the phone. “ _You’re probably still asleep. I mean, I hope you are. You need the rest. I guess just… call me if you need anything. I’ll be there._ ” There’s a pause, and a heavy intake of breath. “ _Okay, that’s it. Bye, Magnus_.”

The voicemail ends, and Magnus is still staring at the lit-up phone screen when another message comes through. It’s from Alec. He opens it slowly, eyes half-shut against the dim sunlight filtering in through the curtains.

 

(From: A. Lightwood, 10:09)

 _I love you. I forgot to say that on the phone. Sorry. I love you._  

 

Magnus can’t stop a smile from ghosting itself across his lips. His read receipts are on, so Alec will know he’s seen the message, and he debates replying. A heart emoji, maybe. The sparkly one. But when he thumbs open the keyboard, the letters seem like a yawning chasm, and his headache spikes and he puts down the phone.

He’ll reply later.

Maybe.

He wants to go back to sleep but he knows he won’t be able to. His nightmares stick to him like cobwebs and he needs to get out of this bed, needs to get out and do something before he starts screaming and can’t stop.

The first thing is his clothes. He strips them off manually, dumping them in a heap on the carpet before vanishing them into nothingness with a snap of his fingers. He sighs. He’d loved that outfit.

His makeup is next. Magnus makes his way to the bathroom and methodically strips off the layers of foundation, bronzer, highlighter, eyeliner and mascara he’d been wearing. He looks at his makeup cabinet, and at his bare and empty face in the mirror, eyes red and heavy. He can’t remember the last time he went bare-faced. Not in this century, at least.

Magnus applies chapstick, just for something to do, and makes his way to the kitchen. He glances at the clock. It’s already half ten. He’s supposed to be meeting with a client at noon. He gets his phone from the bedroom and texts Catarina to cover for him.

Her answering text, buzzing loudly from the kitchen counter as he makes himself coffee, almost makes him jump out of his skin.

 

(From: Catarina, 10:52)

 _Sorted. Here if you need me._ ❤️

 

He stares at the heart for a long moment. It makes something big and fearful well up in his chest. Magnus reaches over and for possibly the first time in his life, turns his phone off.

It’s quiet.

When she came home from the alternate universe, Clary told Magnus that the other him had owned a cat. Two of them, if he’s not mistaken. He glances around the quiet and empty loft and thinks maybe, maybe that’s what he needs. Something to keep him company.

He makes no move to stand. All around the loft are signs of Alec: a spare quiver, half full of arrows, leaning up against a bookshelf; a forgotten leather jacket draped over the arm of the sofa. Alec was all the company Magnus needed, once. He hopes it becomes true again one day.

He conjures a television for his coffee table and spend the day watching mundane shows. The news is depressing, and he switches it off quickly, but the soap operas put too much stock in family drama and, frankly, Magnus has had enough of that for ten lifetimes. He settles on quiz show reruns, and even though the hollowness in his chest is still there, the glaring lights and sounds of the TV manage to keep the memories at bay for a little while.

 

*

 

Magnus clears his schedule for the next week. He foists his clients off to Catarina or cancels them entirely. He activates his wards and tries to remember that solitude is a good thing, and that he handles emotional ordeals better alone.

He sees Ragnor’s ghost, once. It tells him to get his head out of his ass. Magnus conjures it away and sits with his head in his hands for an hour. The headache’s still there. Alec would offer to massage it, maybe. Kiss his temple and hold him to his chest and run his fingers through Magnus’ hair and he wants that, he wants that _back_ , but with memories of Alec come memories of the torture and Magnus can’t separate them however hard he tries. His loft is neat and Alec did that, Alec stayed and cleaned up like he always does, big brother that he is, loving boyfriend that he was—is?

Magnus doesn’t owe Alec anything. But Alec doesn’t owe him anything, either.

 _I hear that relationships take effort_.

 _I’m all for effort_.

Maybe, Magnus thinks, he was better off never knowing the Shadowhunter. Maybe he should escape to that alternate dimension Clary had talked so much about—except there’s an Alec there too, there’s always an Alec, and Magnus couldn’t remove him from where he’s wrapped around his heart if he tried.

 

*

 

The wards go down after a week, and Magnus switches his phone back on. The headache persists but has dulled, enough so that Magnus can ignore it for hours at a time. Alec hasn’t texted him again since that first day, but two days later he does, and it’s for official Clave business, of all things.

 

(From: A. Lightwood, 12:18)

_Can I come over?_

_Sorry. I wouldn’t ask this if I didn’t have to._

_The Clave has asked for something._

 

Magnus hesitates, but replies.

 

(To: A. Lightwood, 12:32)

_Door’s open._

 

He scrolls back through their text history. It’s littered with emojis (almost exclusively on his side, almost all variations of the heart emoji) and enough messages to fill a book. Magnus looks at the dates of the last few texts, how far apart they are. He looks at their emptiness, and locks his phone.

Alec comes over a half hour later. Magnus has dressed and applied his makeup for the first time in over a week but he still feels off-kilter somehow, like a spinning top off centre, and opening his door to see Alec, dressed in black as usual and looking as ethereal as ever, doesn’t help. Alec’s brow is furrowed, and he looks worried, but he doesn’t bring up the past week’s events to Magnus. Magnus isn’t sure if he’s grateful or sad.

“I need your hair,” Alec says, without preamble. “For a DNA test.”

Magnus looks at him. “I didn’t realise there was anything I needed to be cleared of.”

“There’s not,” Alec says, and fidgets his hands together. “It’s just—protocol. We’re checking every Downworlder.”

“May I ask why?”

Alec stares. “You mean you—haven’t heard?” Magnus shakes his head. “A werewolf killed a Shadowhunter,” he says. “The Clave’s coming down hard on us all.”

“I’m—sorry, Alexander,” Magnus says, and he is. Alec looks at him, and Magnus sees him the way he used to: strong and aloof, a warrior with a heart of gold. He looks at him, and the memory corrupts: Imogen Herondale and her agony rune, and Alec, standing by as Magnus screamed.

He knows, he knows it didn’t happen like that. Knows that Alec never stayed for the torture, that he hesitated, that he saved Magnus’ life, in the end. But the subtleties don’t matter when his nightmares come to life. Alec hesitated, but he let it happen; he saved his life, but only when it was almost too late.

“Magnus, I…” Alec’s voice cracks and Magnus has to look away. He hates how this feels between them. He hates this damn headache searing behind his eyes. And most of all he hates how his heart can’t seem to decide between loving the boy in front of him or fearing him.

“You should go,” Magnus says, and Alec sighs, a minute sound. It cuts like a dagger into Magnus’ chest.

“Okay,” he says, his voice gentle, and it’s the same thing he said that night, over a week ago, and Magnus loves a lot of things about his Shadowhunter but most of all he loves his patience. Magnus thinks maybe, maybe they can make this work. He looks back up at Alec, plucks a hair from his head, and hands it to him. Their fingers brush as Alec takes it, and Magnus doesn’t pull away.

“See you soon, Alexander,” he says, and hopes it’s the truth.

 

*

 

Slowly, Magnus learns how to live again. It starts small: makeup each morning, choosing a new outfit, conjuring a Starbucks from down the street. He doesn’t put his wards back up, meets a few clients here and there, keeps his phone switched on and on silent.

The headache’s still there, but Magnus thinks maybe he can learn how to live with it. He might have to. He has a feeling, no matter how long he’s suppressed those memories before, that there’s no bottling them up again now.

The nightmares are easier to bear, now he’s expecting them.

It’s been three weeks and five days since the body swap. He isn’t sure how the Clave sorted out their dead Shadowhunter business, but the streets are quiet again. He pours himself a glass of wine and pulls up his contacts.

 _A. Lightwood_ he erases. _Alexander_ he writes instead, and after a moment’s hesitation, adds ❤️ on the end. His thumb hovers over the call button and he takes a deep breath.

Alec answers after two and a half rings. Magnus counts them. He misses the days when phones had cords, so he could wrap it around his fingers and give them something to do in all his nervousness.

“ _Hello?_ ”

“Alexander, hi.”

“ _Hi_ ,” Alec says, and it sounds breathless. “ _Are you okay?_ ”

“I’m fine.” Magnus sips at his wine. “I was wondering if you’d like to come over tonight.”

“ _Come over? Um, yeah, I’d love to. Give me an hour?_ ”

“Can’t wait.” Magnus hangs up and looks at his phone until the screen goes black.

Alec arrives early, forty minutes from when he’d answered Magnus’ call, and his face is flushed when Magnus lets him inside.

“Cold out there?” Magnus asks, and Alec shrugs.

“Um, a bit,” he says. He’s fidgeting with something behind his back. “I brought you something.” He holds out a single red rose to Magnus, who takes it carefully, like it’s the most precious thing in the world. It might actually be, he wonders, conjuring up a vase and placing the rose inside. He looks at Alec, who is definitely blushing now. “Thank you.”

They sit on the sofa where Alec’s leather jacket still hangs. “How… How are you?” Alec asks hesitantly, gripping the glass of wine Magnus poured him too tightly. Magnus shrugs.

“I’ve… been better,” he says, and sighs. “I’m sorry for pushing you away.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for.” Alec sets his glass down on the coffee table and turns so he’s fully facing Magnus, who looks at him. “I can’t even imagine what you’ve been through, and I can’t apologise enough for my role in it.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Magnus says softly, reaching out and placing a gentle hand on Alec’s knee, who stills entirely. He is looking at Magnus with something like wonder in his eyes. “I understand why you did what you did. And I’ll admit, it’s still… difficult to think about. And I’m not sure when I’ll be able to trust you again.” Alec nods slowly, mouth turning down at the corners. “But I want to try,” Magnus continues. He swallows heavily.

“I love you, Alexander,” he says simply. “And I’m not ready to give this up.”

Alec’s mouth falls open, just the tiniest bit, and Magnus wants to kiss it closed. “I love you too,” he almost-whispers, looking down at Magnus’ hand still on his knee. “Can I… can I touch you?” Magnus nods, and Alec reaches forward, resting his hand against Magnus’ cheek. Magnus leans into the touch and sighs.

“Can I kiss you?” Alec says, even quieter this time, and Magnus nods into his hand. Alec leans forward, incrementally, giving Magnus the time to move away if he needs to; and then he’s turning Magnus’ head and brushing the lightest of kisses against his temple, and it’s not what Magnus was expecting but it’s somehow so much better this way. He blinks his eyes open, not sure when exactly he’d closed them, and realises his headache is gone. He looks back at Alec, who is smiling, and Magnus needs to tell him so many things, but right now, in the quiet, in the stillness of the evening, this is enough.

He leans forward to rest his head on Alec’s shoulder. After a long moment, Alec’s arms come around his back and hold him there, safe and warm and real. Magnus’ closes his eyes and for the first time in almost a month, the nightmares stay away.


End file.
